Pluto and Charon: The "Double Planet"
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ZZ-New_Horizons-00.jpgOn the way to Pluto: the passing of the Moon (1)54 visiteCaption NASA:"The first body New Horizons passed after launch was our own Moon, just 8 hours and 35' after liftoff on Jan. 19, 2006. New Horizons reached the closest distance to the Moon before crossing lunar orbit".
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ZZ-New_Horizons-01.jpgOn the way to Pluto: the passing of Mars (2)54 visiteCaption NASA:"New Horizons' trailblazing journey to the Solar System's outermost frontier took it past the orbit of Mars at 6 a.m. EDT (1000 UTC) on April 7, 2006 - 78 days after the spacecraft launched.
At the time, because of Mars' position in its orbit, New Horizons was actually closer to Earth than to Mars - just 93,5 MKM (58,1 MMs) from home, compared to 299 MKM (186 MMs) from the Red Planet. Speeding away from the Sun at 21 Km (about 13 miles) per second, the spacecraft crossed Mars' path some 243 MKM (about 151 MMs) from the Sun - close to the farthest point in Mars' elliptical 687-day orbit".
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ZZ-New_Horizons-02.jpgOn the way to Pluto: through the Jupiter System (3)55 visiteCaption NASA:"This image shows New Horizons' path through the Jupiter System; the inset shows the location of Jupiter's four largest moons, Io, Ganymede, Europa and Callisto.
New Horizons will turn its science instruments toward the moons as well as the giant planet".
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ZZ-New_Horizons-03.jpgOn the way to Pluto: beyond Jupiter (4)54 visiteCaption NASA:"This image shows New Horizons' Current Position (end of February, 2007). The green segment of the line shows where New Horizons has traveled since launch; the red indicates the spacecraft's path toward Jupiter, Pluto and beyond. Positions of stars with magnitude 12 or brighter are shown from this perspective, which is above the Sun and "north" of Earth's orbit.
AU -> The graphics on these pages note New Horizons' distance from Earth, Jupiter and Pluto in AU, or Astronomical Units. One AU is the average distance between the Sun and Earth, about 93 MMs or 149,6 MKM.
HV -> The Current Position graphic also notes the spacecraft's Heliocentric Velocity - HV, such as its speed with respect to the Sun - in kilometers per second.
One kilometer per second is equivalent to 0,62 miles per second, or 2237 miles per hour".
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ZZ-Pluto-PIA09234.gifPluto! From New Horizons (GIF-Movie)55 visiteCaption NASA:"The Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI) on New Horizons acquired images of the Pluto field 3 days apart in late September 2006, in order to see Pluto's motion against a dense background of stars. LORRI took 3 frames at 1-second exposures on both Sept. 21 and Sept. 24.
Because it moved along its predicted path, Pluto was detected in all six images.
These images are displayed using false-color to represent different intensities: the lowest intensity level is black, different shades of red mark intermediate intensities, and the highest intensity is white. The images appear pixilated because they were obtained in a mode that compensates for the drift in spacecraft pointing over long exposure times. LORRI also made these observations before operators uploaded new flight-control software in October; the upgraded software package includes an optical navigation capability that will make LORRI approximately three times more sensitive still than for these Pluto observations".MareKromium
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ZZ-ZZ-Nhcp20071201_0488.jpgWhere's New Horizons? December 2007 (1) - Current Position54 visiteThis image shows New Horizons' current position. The green segment of the line shows where New Horizons has traveled since launch; the red indicates the Spacecraft's path toward Jupiter, Pluto and beyond. Positions of stars with magnitude 12 or brighter are shown from this perspective, which is above the Sun and "North" of Earth's orbit.
What Is an AU? The graphics on these pages note New Horizons' distance from Earth, Jupiter and Pluto in AU, or Astronomical Units. One AU is the average distance between the Sun and Earth, about 93 MMs or 149,6 MKM.
Heliocentric Velocity.
The current position graphic also notes the Spacecraft's Heliocentric Velocity (HV), such as its speed with respect to the Sun - in kilometers per second.
One kilometer per second is equivalent to 0,62 miles per second, or 2237 miles per hour.MareKromium
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ZZ-ZZ-Nhov20071201_0488.jpgWhere's New Horizons? December 2007 (2) - Full Trajectory: Overhead View54 visiteThis image shows New Horizons' current position along its full planned trajectory. The green segment of the line shows where New Horizons has traveled since launch; the red indicates the spacecraft's future path.
Positions of stars with magnitude 12 or brighter are shown from this perspective, which is above the Sun and "North" of Earth's orbit.MareKromium
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ZZ-ZZ-Nhsv20071201_0488.jpgWhere's New Horizons? December 2007 (3) - Full Trajectory - Side View54 visiteThis image shows New Horizons' current position along its full planned trajectory. The green segment of the line shows where New Horizons has traveled since launch; the red indicates the Spacecraft's future path.
Positions of stars with magnitude 12 or brighter are shown from this perspective, which is slightly above the Orbital Plane of the Planets. MareKromium
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ZZ-ZZ-Nhsv3-060808_NHpassSaturn.jpgWhere's New Horizons? June 2008 - Full Trajectory: Overhead View54 visiteNew Horizons crossed the orbit of Saturn on June 8, passing yet another interplanetary milepost on its voyage to Pluto and the icy environs of the Kuiper Belt.
Spinning in healthy, electronic hibernation, New Horizons reached a distance of 10.06 AU (Astronomical Units; such as about 935 MMs or about 1,5 BKM) from the Sun at 10:00 UT (Universal Time), becoming the first spacecraft to journey beyond Saturn’s orbit since Voyager 2 passed the ringed planet nearly 27 years ago. In fact, Voyager 1 and 2, at the edge of the Sun’s Heliosphere some 100 AU away, are the only Spacecrafts operating farther out than New Horizons.
New Horizons reached Saturn's distance just two years and four months after launch - by far a faster transit to Saturn than any previous spacecraft. (Voyager 1, the previous record holder, made the trip in approximately three years and two months)
New Horizons has crossed the orbits of three planets since its launch in January 2006, though only one – Jupiter, in February 2007 – was close enough for a gravity boost and for the Spacecraft to study. Saturn is more than 1,4 BMs (about 2,3 BKM) from New Horizons at present.
After a productive two-week series of system checks, maintenance activities, and software and command uploads,the Spacecraft is humming through the Outer Solar System at a speed of 40.850 miles (65.740 Km) per hour. The New Horizons Team expects to keep the Spacecraft in hibernation until Sept. 2, 2008. MareKromium
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ZZ-ZZ-ZZ-Pluto-lorri_pluto_im01_1x1_oct2007_ppt.pngPluto54 visiteThis image demonstrates the first detection of Pluto using the High-Resolution mode on the New Horizons Long-Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI). The mode provides a clear separation between Pluto and numerous nearby background stars. When the image was taken on October 6, 2007, Pluto was located in the constellation Serpens, in a region of the sky dense with background stars.
Typically, LORRI’s exposure time in Hi-Res mode is limited to approx. 0,1", but by using a special pointing mode that allowed an increase in the exposure time to 0,967", scientists were able to spot Pluto, which is approximately 15.000 times fainter than human eyes can detect.
New Horizons was still too far from Pluto (3,6 BKM, or 2,2 BMs) for LORRI to resolve any details on Pluto’s surface – that won’t happen until Summer 2014, approximately one year before closest approach. For now the entire Pluto System remains a bright dot to the Spacecraft’s telescopic camera, though LORRI is expected to start resolving Charon from Pluto – seeing them as separate objects – in summer 2010.MareKromium
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ZZ-ZZ-ZZ-ZZ-20100727_LORRILooksBack_lg.jpgOn the Way to Pluto: Jupiter, Europa and Ganymede98 visiteCaption NASA:"New Horizons had an exciting Fly-By encounter with Jupiter in early 2007, and the Spacecraft has been rapidly moving away from the Giant Planet ever since.
The New Horizons team looked back at Jupiter during Annual Checkout (ACO) to test the Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI)'s ability to image targets close, in angle, to the Sun.
This image was taken on June 24, 2010, when New Horizons was 16,3 Astronomical Units (about 1,5 Billion Miles) from Jupiter, at a Spacecraft-Sun-Planet angle of only 17°. Looking like Earth's moon at a quarter phase, Jupiter is clearly resolved, with an apparent diameter of nearly 12 LORRI pixels. LORRI also picks up the moons Ganymede and Europa, even though the exposure time was only 9 milliseconds and these Galilean satellites are extremely faint in comparison to Jupiter".MareKromium
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ZZ-ZZ-ZZ-ZZ-20100727_LORRIM_lg.jpgOn the Way to Pluto: Messier 779 visiteCaption NASA:"The New Horizons team calibrates the Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI) by taking pictures of the Open Star Cluster Messier 7 (M 7). This is the first LORRI image of M 7 taken during Annual Checkout (ACO); the 100-millisecond manual exposure was taken on June 25, 2010. A preliminary comparison of this image to a 2008 LORRI picture of M7 indicated no degradation or change in LORRI's performance".MareKromium
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